Banished Women Across the Centuries

Description

In this illustrated lecture, we’ll explore figures such as Eve, Lilith, and Pandora through the lens of Latin literature, discovering how these stories were retold, challenged, and reimagined across the centuries. Along the way, we’ll meet remarkable writers including Proba, Hildegard of Bingen, and Isotta Nogarola, and see how Renaissance feminists turned the story of Eve into a powerful argument for expanding women’s roles and opportunities. Drawing on art, architecture, history, and modern popular culture, we’ll uncover why these banished women continue to captivate us, and what their stories can still teach us

Skye Shirley’s love of Latin began at Lexington High School, where she studied under the inspirational Latin teacher Dr. Michael Fiveash. She is a proud graduate of the University of Massachusetts Boston’s Latin and Classical Humanities Master’s Program, where she studied the most current and convincing research into language acquisition, and used it to inform her own Latin pedagogy. At UMass, she learned to speak Latin and to tackle systemic barriers in classical studies for many identity groups. She holds a Ph.D. in Latin from University College London, where her dissertation focused on seventeenth-century Latin poetry books written by women. In April 2018, she founded Lupercal, an international organization dedicated to Latin by and about women, which she co-directs with Lauren Downey. In 2025, she launched the Latin ReadHer, a bilingual reading app that brings women’s Latin texts to a wider audience.